


Time's Passing

by theWickedWitchofFeels



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Death, Gen, Sad, being forgotten sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 23:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15959567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theWickedWitchofFeels/pseuds/theWickedWitchofFeels
Summary: "The flow of time is always cruel...  Its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it...  A thing that doesn't change with time is a memory of younger days... "





	Time's Passing

Deep in a sacred forest, stone weathered by time and rain, a child waits. 

The statue is of a hero believed forgotten. Indeed, none but the forest children even know of the statue’s existence; but they hold it as their most holy secret. Very often they will leave flowers and small instruments at the child’s feet, and spend time at the statue playing old songs of the hero. 

The child waits. 

No one knows who created the statue, only that it was placed sometime after the Hero of Time slew Ganondorf upon the ruins of his own tower with the help of the Seven Sages. Hundreds, even thousands of years it has stood quietly in the forest, among the trees and the ferns, lips silent upon a carved stone ocarina. Some forest children say that the ocarina is carved in such a way that should the breeze blow just right, they can hear a four-note song play. A melancholic tune, carrying the weight and the solitude of death. 

The land changes, but still the child waits. The forest moves, but the child somehow follows it, still standing in the deepest part of the forest where none of the common folk go. His only constant visitor now is the skull kid, who plays his merry songs for his old friend. The only thing he can still do for him. The skull kid, as a spirit himself, knows that his friend is not at rest, but he can do nothing for him. 

Or so he thought, until he came upon the wolf with a strange imp upon his back and striking blue eyes. The skull kid helped his friend’s descendant in his own way, under the guise of a game, leading him to the sacred sword the child of time once pulled. Along the way, they passed by the child, but the wolf was too intent on what he sought to see the old statue. 

The second time the wolf came, however, was different. This time he was not a wolf, not a boy, but a man, and the imp was naught but his shadow behind him. The skull kid knew what to do. He led the hero deep into the forest. 

He led the man to the child. 

He was the first Hylian ever to lay eyes on the statue, as its subject had died never knowing it existed. He was struck by the sadness, the stone weathered like a gravestone stark gray among the green of the forest. He could almost hear the song in the wind, the four note song of peace and death. A familiar song. 

He turned into his beast form and softly howled the song of healing, but nothing happened. Nothing but a breeze that ruffled his neck fur as if to caress. There was no inscription upon the statue, no name, but somehow he knew who this statue was dedicated to. His resolve to lay the spirit to rest grew.

The hero remained by the child’s statue until the sun grew low in the sky, and the stars came out to watch over it in his stead. He left then to complete his quest, to free the spirit and follow in his footsteps. 

Still, the child waited. 

The forest children returned, now more plant than child, but still they tended to the statue and kept its existence a secret. The land changed, the forest moved, but still, always, the child waited. 

Until the day a boy of mere seven came into the forest. Lost, separated from his father, the child was found by the forest children and brought to the Great Deku Tree. There, the Sword chose him as her own, her new master, young though he was. 

When he went to return to his own people, the wild child found the statue all on his own. He saw a reflection of himself, carved into stone and holding an unfamiliar instrument. It sent shivers down his spine, not from fear, but as if someone walked upon his grave. In all the years that followed, until the Calamity came and stole his loved ones along with his memories, he didn’t forget the child. 

The child still waited. Decades passed, but the wild one came again; he was now a man, who had lost so much but also gained so much, who had brought peace again for a time.  
He laid a flower at the child’s feet, and placed a bottle of milk by it. 

Then he pulled out a strange instrument and played the song he had heard on that day as a child in the forest. 

And somewhere, the child’s spirit was soothed.

**Author's Note:**

> a non-edited, just kind of weird thing I wrote based on a headcanon I have. Poor Time. Someone pls give this boy the love he deserves


End file.
